The unicorn’s hooves hit the ground… and then its front legs stumbled. Hallix was there, slashing a gaping wound into its neck, blue blood spraying the earth. Then, with a wailing groan, the unicorn toppled over sideways, landing with a great splash as it tumbled directly into the creek. Hallix waited a moment, tense and alert, ready to kill it all over again.
But it was clear the beast was dead. Hallix dropped his sword and rushed to Nalyx’s side. “Oh, sweet gods, you’ve done it this time.” He yanked Nalyx into a sitting position, ignoring his groan of pain, then pulled out a knife and sliced through the straps on his armour. The horn had gone in just at the point where the tough metal plate ended, and Hallix yanked the breastplate off, peering at the wound underneath. “What a bloody… wait a sec… oh!” He let out a chuckle, more nerves than real amusement. “The heat must have cauterised the wound. There’s not much blood.” But then his face fell. “I dare say you’re going to be feeling that for days, though. Hey! Henrick!” he yelled, waving to his brother, who was just now making his way through the undergrowth. “Come and help me over here!” He peered at the wound again, then grinned, relief catching up with him in a hurry. “Damn, Nalyx, you are one lucky son of a bitch. Henrick, help me get him up.” He winked at Nalyx. “If you can manage to hold on for a piggyback ride, I’ll carry you back to camp.”
CHAPTER FOUR
As the minutes counted down to the closing of the gate, Gantalla huddled against the side of the rock, her heart thundering in her chest. How much longer? The sun seemed to be directly overhead, the great towering rock above her casting almost no shade.
Around her, the milling people shoved and shouted, each one desperate to make the crossing before it was too late, and equally terrified of doing so. A band of deelees made the charge, then a handful of hadathmet fell in behind them. Three fire-dogs rushed through the gate, then one of them immediately dashed back again, eyes wide in terror. By the gods, what horrors must be waiting on the other side?
The gate itself was huge, five metres wide and just as high. The top curved in a wide arch, and the entire gate was surrounded by a thick stone frame. The opening swirled with a curtain of iridescent light, and it was impossible to see what was on the other side. No one knew when or how the gate had been built. Some even said that it hadn’t been ‘built’ at all, but had simply appeared one day, centuries ago, by some mystical art. But Gantalla didn’t care how it had come into existence. Only that it represented her only opportunity to escape her dying world.
She fingered the necklace around her throat, praying that the magic would work on the other side. The human world was different, after all, and perhaps magic worked differently over there?
Suddenly, one of the unicorns seemed to gather its courage. It broke away from the scant shade at the side of the wide chasm, immediately catching on fire. The poor creatures excreted oil from their skin, which was unfortunately highly flammable. Their natural habitat was a temperate forest, covered in snow all winter, and they were perhaps the least well equipped to deal with the desert heat of all the peoples here. Fortunately, their skin and hair seemed impervious to the flames – much like the fire-dogs, who literally ate hot coals for nourishment – which made the flames mightily uncomfortable for them, but not actually harmful. The unicorn charged through the gate, and a handful of rodolans followed it, no doubt aiming to take advantage of the distraction provided by half a ton of flaming equine.
And still Gantalla waited. To distract herself, she counted to ten. Then to ten again.
But just as she was about to count for the third time, a great, rumbling groan shook the earth, and Gantalla braced herself, feeling like she was about to vomit. A huge slab of stone appeared at the side of the gateway, rolling sideways across the swirling gap.
The gate was closing. It was now or never.
Unfortunately, a dozen other people had all realised the same thing. A swarm of them rushed for the gate, salases and rodolans and deelees, all pushing and shoving to make it through the rapidly narrowing gap. Gantalla hadn’t been raised on a battlefield, or even on a domestic farm. She’d been born as the daughter of the king of the hadathmet; a princess, provided with every luxury and with her every whim catered for, from the time she’d been old enough to walk.
But her royal roots were not going to help her now. With as much force as she could muster, she shoved her way to the front, elbowing a deelee out of the way, pushing a rodolan to the side, then punching another hadathmet in the face when he grabbed her hood and tried to yank her back away from the gate. Pain shot through her fist as it connected with the man’s face, but she pressed on.
There was no time to think about it now, no time to brace herself for what she’d find on the other side. With the gate three quarters of the way closed, she simply hurled herself through, unable to even breathe as her throat closed up in terror.
Her feet stumbled on rocky ground, a sudden and unexpected change from the smooth sand of the desert. She lurched to the side as a salas slammed into her from the right, then again as a fire-dog tripped her left leg. Instinctively, she tried to right herself… and then remembered the witch’s instructions.Fall to the ground and play dead. She tumbled down onto the rocks, landing with her face on the bloody buttocks of a fenrig – a large man with purple skin. She considered moving, disgust warring with good sense, but managed to get herself to stay still for another moment. The groaning of the gate closing faded out behind her, and she felt a sudden stab of fear. The gate was closed. There was no way back home.
Not that she wanted to go back there, but knowing shecouldn’twas nonetheless a terrifying idea. She lay rigid and still, and as luck would have it, she’d fallen with her back to the gate, her face towards the army of human warriors. If nothing else, she’d be able to see what was going on. She closed her eyes until they were just slits, watching surreptitiously as the chaos raged all around her.
The last handful of deelees who’d crossed the gate clashed with a group of human soldiers. It didn’t take long for them all to be slain, the last one dying with a gurgle as his throat was cut. Further to the right, a huge salas was making a brave stand, but he was outnumbered ten to one, and even as ferocious as the salas warriors were, he stood no chance against so many.
After he fell, there was silence for a moment or two, the rustle of the wind the only sound across the bloody battlefield. Then a great cheer rang out, the humans waving their swords in the air, slapping each other on the back, congratulating each other over a job well done.
They were cheering? Cheering over the deaths of so many of her brethren? Such barbarism was deplorable.
A short way in front of her, a rodolan lay on the ground, but he wasn’t quite dead. He rolled over and groaned, clutching at a bloody wound in his belly. One of the humans caught his movement and wandered over. “Hey there, pig scum,” the human said. “You picked the wrong day for a fight.” He casually stabbed the rodolan in the chest, black blood spurting out as he died. Then, to Gantalla’s horror, he looked slowly over the battlefield. “Any more of you bastards still alive?”
His gaze fell on her, and she froze, holding herself perfectly still, not even daring to breathe lest she give herself away. But her heart was pounding like she’d been running for hours, and instinct urged her to run, to scramble to her feet and get as far away from these monsters as possible.
By sheer force of will, she made herself stay still. One single move and she was dead. The seconds ticked by, and then finally, the human turned away, going back to his group of soldiers. Thank the gods.
But Gantalla was far from safe.
The afternoon dragged on. The humans collected their weapons and looted a number of decent swords from those they’d killed. One man, a tall, muscular human wearing a shiny helmet, seemed to be the leader, as he was barking orders and rounding up groups of the soldiers to send them away. They trickled off across the battlefield, disappearing down a winding road that led into the nearby forest.
A part of Gantalla’s mind managed to feel a sense of relief at the sight of those towering trees. Centuries ago, it was said that such forests had existed in Chalandros as well, bountiful places with plentiful game, wild mushrooms growing on rotting logs, beautiful lizards and rodents scurrying about in the undergrowth. But the forests were long gone now, even the dead trees turned to ash as wildfires had ripped across the landscape. To have even seen such a sight was a great gift, even if she made it no further than her makeshift bed on blood-stained rocks and dead bodies. It was more than many of her people would ever get to see.
No, Gantalla told herself firmly. She would not die here. She had to be patient, to wait a few hours more, until the last of the humans left, and then she could sneak away into the forest and be free.
But even that faint hope was suddenly cut short, as she saw a new group of humans arrive from out of the forest road. These were smaller than the warriors, dressed in cotton and linen, rather than leather and armour. And they were wheeling flat carts behind them. As she watched, they began loading the bodies onto the carts, starting with the ones closest to the forest. Of course. The witch had said they sent humans to clear away the dead. She just hadn’t realised they would start quite so soon. She glanced at the shadows, trying to calculate how much of the day remained. The humans had started at the far side of the battlefield, and she prayed they worked slowly. If they made it all the way to her before nightfall, she was in a world of trouble.
“They did a good job this time,” she heard one of the women say. “Hundreds of the bloody creatures.”
“Makes more work for us, though,” another woman complained. “We’ll be here for a whole week with the mess they’ve made.”
“Oh, stop your groaning,” a third woman said. “They can hardly just let the demons run free across the country. And I’d much rather spend a week carting them off to the graves than have them attacking the city. May the gods bless all those brave soldiers for keeping us safe.”
